The value of parks and green spaces in Britain’s cities, towns and villages is being increasingly recognised from a health and wellbeing perspective, but that’s only part of what they can offer at the heart of local communities.

The announcement during 2019 of new initiatives to improve parks and green spaces, including an £11m scheme funded by the government, the National Trust and National Lottery Heritage Fund, ensured residents of many towns and cities see important enhancements. Building a more sustainable future for these spaces, however, can be achieved by ensuring they are equipped with an effective services infrastructure to provide access to power, water, gas and more as and when it is needed.

This is the rationale behind the range of pop up, retractable and in-ground service units from UK company Pop Up Power Supplies®. Its solutions are already widely installed in parks, recreational grounds, leisure facilities and the outdoor spaces around all kinds of publicly accessible estates and buildings, which allows for the hosting of events, large and small. The success of regular outdoor events that depend on high quality parks and green spaces to attract large numbers of people, including Parkrun and annual fundraisers like Race for Life, demonstrates a strong appetite amongst the public to have access to the great outdoors in their local community. One recent report by the ONS even found that houses and flats within 100 metres of public green spaces are an average of £2,500 more expensive than they would be if they were more than 500 metres away – an average premium of 1.1% (based on 2016 figures).

Key to hosting such events is having safe, reliable access to services on demand to power food and drink kiosks, sound systems, lighting and more, without the need to arrange generators which can be inconvenient and present health and safety risks.

Pop up, retractable power units from Pop Up Power Supplies® are ideal for providing access to services whenever it is needed, but hidden away when not. Four options are available, offering different configurations and supplying up to 600 amps in total, which can be tailored to the specific requirements of the park. These units are raised and lowered into the ground with ease by authorised persons using a simple turning handle, and come with a recessed lid to accommodate grass, paving stones or any other surface type.

The company’s range of in ground units provide an alternative approach. These allow power, water, telephony and gas access points to be concealed in the ground at all times, with access when needed via a flip lid. This can be locked down when in use to prevent unwanted tampering, so only short cables are visible to connect adjacent applications.